SUMMARY

The Republic of Armenia (alternatively the Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic) was one of the constituent republics of the Soviet Union. The “Declaration of State Sovereignty of Armenia” on 23 August 1990, which was intended to facilitate independence from the Soviet Union, officially changed the name of the entity from “Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic” to the “Republic of Armenia”. Following the first multi-party elections to the Supreme Soviet of Armenia (the highest legislative body) in May 1990, political power was seized from the Communist party by the Hayots Hamazgayin Sharjum (Armenian National Movement, ANM). The ANM was the first non-Communist group to seize power in a Soviet republic. Levon Ter-Petrosian, who was also appointed Chairman of the Supreme Soviet on 4 August, making him the de facto leader of the republic, led the ANM. The formal declaration of independence from the Soviet Union was issued on 21 September 1991; following the dissolution of the Soviet Union on 26 December 1991, the Republic of Armenia became an independent state (see the Armenia country profile). Ter-Petrosian was elected President of Armenia on 16 October the same year.

One defining question for the Republic of Armenia was the integration of Nagorno-Karabakh - a region populated by an Armenian majority population and a significant Azeri minority group - into its own territory; it was something that it had pursued since the late 1980s. In fact, the ANM had links to the mass nationalist “Karabakh Movement” (alternatively the “Artsakh Movement”), which had advocated Armenian reunification with Nagorno-Karabakh since 1988. The leading clique of the Karabakh Movement, a group of eleven Armenian intellectuals usually referred to as the “Karabakh Committee”, were the ones that founded the ANM in 1990; among them was Levon Ter-Petrosian. The Karabakh Committee pursued a broad Armenian nationalist agenda, the Hai Dat (“Armenian Cause”), not just the integration of Nagorno-Karabakh. The Karabakh-issue led to a highly strained and confrontational relationship with the Azerbaijan SSR; in 1991, these tensions escalated into an armed conflict (for more on this, see Azerbaijan: Nagorno-Karabakh).

When fighting erupted over the territory in 1990 and 1991, it was conducted not by forces directly controlled by the Republic of Armenia, but rather militia and paramilitary groups collectively referred to as the fedayin (roughly translated as “sacrificial fighters”), comprised of a few hundred Armenian nationals. The Republic of Armenia however supplied the fedayin, both in Nagorno-Karabakh and in the regions just north of it, with large amounts of weapons, some purchased from Soviet army units in for example Georgia. The ANM administration in the Republic of Armenia also forged close ties to the newly established Russian parliament, and its Speaker Boris Yeltsin; they were united in their opposition against the Soviet security establishment. The Republic of Armenia received support from Russian parliamentarians, who spoke out against the use of force by Azeri forces and the Soviet forces supporting them.